Cheers, Zon!

I've got this baby primered, now! I used Tamiya's Fine Surface Primer for plastic and metal, and I gotta' tell ya', this stuff lays down beautifully, and is not at all rough to the touch! Jus' what I wanted, for all this fine detail! Awesome stuff!

The radio for the turret ring is on order, and will be added later!

The hull of this vehicle will have to be painted in two stages, lower and then upper hull! So, i've layed down some XF-63 German Grey as a basecoat for the Dunkelgelb colour! The reason for this, bein' the fact that some of this paint is gonna' show through in the way of paint chips! I was toyin' with the idea of usin' XF-17 Sea Blue (my favourite Panzer Grey colour, now), but decided against it 'cos it is darker, and this is gonna' be a vehicle that served in the DAK!

Also, i've lightly textured the inside of the wheel arches and mudguards, with some Mr. Surfacer 500! Ya' gotta' have some sort of encrustation, in there!

The whole thing has been coated, now! I'm gonna' give it some curin'' time, then it's on with the paint chips, usin' Maskol and a scourin' pad cut up into small pieces! More on this later!

I've decided to run a test, usin' Humbrol Maskol and a scourin' pad, on a scrap piece of paper! The results speak for themselves! Awesome!

This technique will apply only to the centre panels of the armour, to recreate a look of sun and wind-blasted, or eroded paint!

Excellent build you have there, Paul.
In regards to the Humbrol Maskol, do you just apply it with a regular brush, spray over it, and then peel it off? It does a wonderful job!

To get these effects, I used the corners of some cut up pieces of a scourin' pad, no brush was used!

I used a double-sided sticky tab cut to about a half inch square, to hold it firm to a spraycan! It does the business perfectly, no worries!

I've applied a coat of Johnson's Klear with my airbrush, and left it for about 24 hours to fully cure. The decals were then applied without any problems, no silverin' or splittin'! The decals are nice and thin and with some Microset, jus' end up lookin' like they were painted on!

This is now ready for a matt coat! The decals will then be masked off with Blue-Tac, for when the XF-60 Dark Yellow is applied!

Just stumbled in here and I am glad I did. Excellent step by step. Can't wait to see the next steps. Carry on.

Shaun

Cheers, Keenan!

The emporer has a new set of clothes!

So far this build has had five coats of paint, and is gonna' get a total of seven. These are primer, German Grey basecoat, gloss coat (for decals), matt coat (to seal in decals), Dark Yellow colourcoat, gloss coat (again, for washes) and then matt coat (again)!

The detail is still in totally excellent shape, due to the thinness of the paint. It still looks the same as when it was primered!

Most excellent work, Paul; very impressive.
Have you ever had any problems with Blue Tack tearing away the decals? I've thought of using it to do the same sort of thing before, but I was a bit apprehensive about the whole situation
.

Mike, I thought the same thing, but if you apply a nice solid matt coat to 'em, to seal 'em in, there shouldn't be any worries, 'cos that's exactly what I did! The Blue-Tac is quite low-tac, and doesn't present any problems. I applied the Blue-tac very lightly also, to the decals, jus' to make sure!

I applied the Blue-Tac as a blob over the decals, and then worked it into shape with a toothpick, to cover the decals!

Hi Fingers,

That is one impressive build, you are truly a master of your art - I was gonna try a 222 myself, think I will wait a while for my skills to improve !! :-) :-) :-)

Do you have any idea of how many hours you have put into this so far??

Cheers
CB

Thanks, mate!

I started this on the 11th Aug. so it's been nearly a month! Times that by about 2 hours a day, minus a week, 'cos there has been a few days where i've not touched it! This is very very approximate! :-)

Hi Paul Ive been following your build with great interest,im building the 223 but out of the box.You have done a superb job so far,can you tell me where you got your M.G.34 from Im not at all impressed with the kit offering

Thanks a lot!

John, I took it from a Dragon Gen2 figure set, the 1st Fallschirmjager set! If you look back on my posts, I did mention it!
I do believe that it's better than the Armorscale option, 'cos it has all the tricks an' bits on it, not like the Armorscale one! Also, of course you get a machine gun belt, too!

I personally think, that Dragon has now made Armorscale's MG34 redundant!

This is where i'm at with the chip effects, at the moment! I know what your thinkin' "have I gone mad", but due to my references and information, this is a case of poorly applied 'civilian Dunkelgelb' paint colour. This was actually used in the field for a certain time, long before the mainstay of it's kind was used!

So i'm workin' on the principle, that this vehicle was never entirely clean, prior to the application of this paint. Also, the 'civilian' version of this paint that they used, was total *hit!

It looks stark and contrasty now, but after some carefully applied filters and pigments it will be toned down!

Let me know what you think!

im goin to attempt the scrtaches on my next model

ok so all you do is

paint base coat

aply main caot

then scratch?

In a first look, I would say it looks fantastic! But them, looking better, you will agree with me that it looks too regularly paint chipped! In my opinion you need more irregularity in the chipping of the paint! Try doing some more, but in smaller amounts in between what is already done! That will break the regularity in which the chipping appears. Nevertheless, it's a great technique! Congratulations!
Cheers and happy modelling!
Prato

I read these africa corps colour questions with some interest,as Ive read that mud and camel dung were used to cammo the vehicles so i wouldnt worry to much about the colour.Personnaly I think your paint job looks the business,a lot is said about overweathering but the desert was a harse mother,boiling hot days, freezing nights, rocks abrasive sand and they never had no laquer finish on their paint jobs

I'm nearly finished with the chipped paint effects! I say nearly, 'cos I still have the bottom sides of the chassis, and round the springs to do! I'll be shootin' a suitably dusty shade of paint with the airbrush, in this area and inside the wheel arches, to simulate a build up of dust. The weatherin' on the upper hull will need to be completed, first of all though!

Jus' lately I haven't had a chance to work on this, but now i'm back on track!

I've managed to apply some filters to this, and I feel it's slowly but surely takin' shape! The filters I used were first of all some Burnt Umber (straight from the tube), then a mix of Burnt Umber and Payne's Grey (50/ 50).

Lastly, I used Naples Yellow Hue (straight from the tube, also). This colour is so reccommended by myself for any Dunkelgelb paint job, it gives such a cool washed out, and faded appearance. It's such a fantastic colour! The colours I used, are the water mixable oil colour by Winsor & Newton!

As you can see, i've added a resin spare wheel, it comes from the Royal Model Stowage set for the '222'.

Paul,

I have watched your project with interest throughout the process and think that you have done an excellent job to one of my all time favourite wagons/kits.

I know it has been commented on previously but having spent some time looking at the latest images, I will mirror what others have said; your chipping looks very symetrical, like you have applied a camouflage effect. To quantify the chips are not random enough in size to give the effect of a sandblasted vehicle that has been painted with a quick job from civilian stocks of paint.

Sorry to pass this comment that I hope you will not see as being too critical, but I think that it is detracting from a superb build.

John

John, do you have any reference material?!

This is another addition to the vehicle that needed the same chip treatment! These are the fuel jerrycans. For these I used the corner of a sponge to start with, then with a brush I joined up some of the scratches and chips that looked like they needed to be! These are set to go, now!

I did make an effort in creatin' some 'dinks' and 'dents' in these, by carvin' 'em with a scalpel, but they're not too noticeable in this shot!

how do you create scratches?

You can create chips and scratches with a good '0000' brush and a scourin' pad. Both of these are dipped in paint and can be applied straight onto model With the scourin' pad, you need to wipe off the excess paint onto a paper towel so you don't get blobs instead of chips and scratches!

I've finally finished the chipped paint effects!

I've lightly airbrushed some 'dust' effects within the wheel arches, and around the lower hull, usin' XF-57 Buff. For the upper hull i'll use some sand coloured pastels!

Then it's onto the wheels!